Bing and Decide and Get Free Coffee or a Amazon gift card
Credit card companies pretty much offer the same basic service. One way in which various credit card providers (banks, financial institutions) compete with each other is via rewards – cash-backs, reward points etc. Given an option between two very similar credit cards, ‘A’ and ‘B’, people are likely to choose ‘B’ say if ‘B’ offered 5% cash-back instead of the 1% cash-back offered by ‘A’. Fair game you would say. Correct ?
Now think of search engines. The two most prominent search engines in the US market, Bing and Google, pretty much provide nearly the same results. Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, claims that 70% of the times users will have equally relevant results on both Bing and Google, 15% of the times Bing will be better and 15% of the times Google will be better. Going by my personal experience I would tend to agree with this statement.
Now how does Bing, being the new player on the block, get more users ? One way Bing does this is via Bing Rewards. Users on Bing, can sign up and earn points on Bing, which later on can be used to redeem things like Amazon gift cards, Starbucks gift cards or even donate to various charitable organizations. My friends often joke that Bing needs to use ‘tricks’ like ‘rewards’ to lure users to use their service. Its not because of their ‘poor service’ as some would claim, but because it is almost at even par with its competitor. As it is with credit card providers, I think its fair for Bing to use reward points to get more users in an era where ‘google’ is used a verb.
So, give Bing a spin and earn a Amazon gift card while you do so. You can also use my referral if you wish to : goo.gl/k0xPk
(Full Disclosure: I was summer intern (summer 2011) with Microsoft Bing. The views expressed in this post are solely mine, and none of my current or previous employers subscribe to these views)
Champion
He once had a temperament, but he found his cool and became a champion.
The key lies in finding cool; controlling your temper.
Free Classes at Stanford University
Stanford University will be offering the following classes online and free, starting January 2012 :
- CS 101 - http://www.cs101-class.org
- Machine Learning - http://jan2012.ml-class.org
- Software as a Service - http://www.saas-class.org
- Human-Computer Interaction - http://www.hci-class.org
- Natural Language Processing - http://www.nlp-class.org
- Game Theory - http://www.game-theory-class.org
- Probabilistic Graphical Models - http://www.pgm-class.org
- Cryptography - http://www.crypto-class.org
- Design and Analysis of Algorithms I – http://www.algo-class.org
Non Computer Science courses:
- Lean Launchpad - http://www.launchpad-class.org
- Technology Entrepreneurship - http://www.venture-class.org/
Which courses are you planning to enroll ?
Of Morals and Ethics : Joe Paterno and the Penn State scandal
Background: Jerry Sandusky, a former defensive coordinator and coach emiretus at Penn State University football, was indicted by the Pennsylvania grand jury on “on 40 counts of sex crimes against young boys”. Apparently, some of the incidents happened on the Penn State campus, since Mr. Sandusky still had access to the facilities as coach emeritus. Former assistant coach Mike McQueary, saw one such incident and immediately reported it to head coach of Penn State football team, Joe Paterno. Mr. Paterno in turn reported the incident to the University authorities. The incident was hushed up and the University authorities failed to report the incident to the police. Everything came out in public, when a parent of a victim filed a police complaint in 2009, which lead to the investigations and the eventual indictments. Two University officials were charged with perjury for failing to report the incident, while Mr. Paterno wasn’t charged.
Impact: Jerry Sandusky was indicted, Penn State University president Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno were fired by the Penn State trustees. The firing of Mr. Paterno, popularly known as “JoePa”, drew extreme reactions from students, leading to mini riots. Mr. Paterno was the coach of Penn State football team for 46 years and is one of the most successful and popular University football coaches.
Questions: The grand jury did not press any charges against Joe Paterno, since he had fulfilled his “legal obligations” of reporting the incident seen by Mr. McQueary to the University authorities. But what about moral obligations ? Was Joe Paterno, morally obliged to inform the incident to the police, when he must have realized that the University has decided not take action ? The only “action” University took against Mr. Sandusky was to tell him, not to bring boys to the campus. But he still had access to the facilities. Wasn’t Mr. Paterno concerned for the safety of other kids on the campus ? Why did Mr. Paterno, choose to stay quiet ? Was it because he wanted to “protect the reputation” of Penn State ?
Opinion: In my opinion, Joe Paterno was wrong. Mr. Paterno should have reported the incident further to the police when the University officials failed to take action. It remains unanswered as to why Mr. Paterno remained quiet. If it was to protect the reputation of Penn State, then he was wrong. Given the stature of Mr. Paterno, he would have enhanced it by going out in public. Students and parents looked up to “JoePa”, the grand fatherly figure of Penn State football.
If Mr. Paterno was concerned going against the University or losing his job, he was wrong there as well. He had enjoyed quite success until then as coach and he making good money as well (It was reported that in 2007, Mr. Paterno’s salary was $512,664 “which was not inclusive of other compensation, such as money from television and apparel contracts as well as other bonuses”). So he shouldn’t have been worried about loosing his job. In my opinion, he had achieved a lot by then. Besides, once again given the stature and respect he commands, I am sure parents, the community and Penn State trustees would have stood with him, if he had gone to police/ public with what he know.
By reporting the incident to the police, Mr. Paterno would have put a stop to Mr. Sandusky activities as well. The Penn State incident occurred in 2002 and Mr.Sandusky was indicted finally in 2011. Post 2002, it was reported that Mr. Sandusky continued with his dirty deeds. While it easy to get swayed by emotions and expressing anger over Mr. Paterno’s firing (imagine a situation with a Sachin Tendulkar and the reactions), but in this case Mr. Paterno is (morally) wrong. He deserved a grander exit as coach of Penn State football, but given the situation, Penn State trustees are right in firing him.
What do you think ? Your opinions are welcome.
Personalized Lottery Scam
The personalized web is truly here ! I received the following (lottery scam) email :
The “scamster” obviously did some targetted emailing. “Diwali lottery” to what I am possibly guessing indian email ids is indeed an interesting idea and attempt to trick people.
Fall Colors
Fall Colors 2011, near Stowe, Vermont, US
Covered Bridge
Covered Bridge at Longley, Vermont, USA
Inventor of the ‘C’ programming language dies
A notification on the website of the Computer Science department at UMBC informed that Dennis Ritchie, inventor of the C programming language, has passed away. Dr. Ritchie passed away on October 12, 2011. He is well known for his pioneering contributions to Unix and programming languages. So far there has been no media coverage about this incident. It was Rob Pike, who posted this news on Google+, which then got posted to Y Combinator / Hacker News. Sad.
As my friend Sagar aptly put it “Dennis Ritchie – Thank you for letting us C. Rest in Peace”
A painting coming to life
Fall colors in Vermont were beautiful. More to come soon.
Country road, take me home
A very good song by the same name can be found here
